3 Ways to Wear Red

by Janet Leigh

  We hadn’t covered German in linguistics, because I wasn’t supposed to be here. The only person I could think of who spoke German was Helga, the clinic’s massage therapist. I had known her only a short time, but she’d taught me a few words, mostly curse words. I might be able to copy her accent.

  “Ya,” I said, nodding.

  “That’s my girl.” He helped me sit up and I immediately felt woozy. After he laid me back down, I felt better. Concern and a hint of irritation showed in his eyes as he stared down at me and ran a hand through his dust-encrusted hair. We were stranded in an enemy country, and I needed to know our plan of exit.

  “What’s our MO?” I asked, using the WTF slang for “game plan.”

  “You are a sick cousin, and I am taking you home to Milan,” Caiyan said with the perfect German accent.

  “My Italian is worse than my German.”

  A crooked smile hinted at the corners of his mouth as he took me in his arms. “When they let us out, I am going to ask to speak with the commander.”

  “I think we should just head back home.”

  “No, we need to get what we came for,” Caiyan said, a little too demandingly.

  “This is war. We aren’t just fighting a brigand. We could die more ways than one.”

  “We’re already inside. It shouldnae be a problem to grab the art on the way oot the door.”

  Jeez, he acted as if the Nazis were going to hand out shopping bags on the way into their treasure room. “We’re going home,” I said firmly.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and looked me right in the eye. “Then ye will have to go withoot me.”

  “You don’t have your key. That means I’m in charge, and I say we are going.”

  He stared at me with hard-set green eyes. “Ye are impossible, ye know that?”

  “Careful, your Scot is coming out,” I said, knowing that when he got agitated, he had a harder time controlling his native tongue.

  He had raised his finger, pointed it at my chest, and opened his mouth as though he was about to set me straight when the door to the tunnel opened. Three soldiers entered the room armed with rifles. They were dressed in gray military uniforms, minus the swastika armbands that appeared in all the World War II movies I had seen. They ordered Caiyan to come with them. Caiyan was speaking German and pointing at me. An argument started between the soldier in charge and Caiyan. Two of the soldiers grabbed Caiyan and pushed him toward the door. He threw a glance at me over his shoulder.

  I stood a little too quickly, trying to help him, and faded to black once again.

  * * *

  ***

  * * *

  A clanging noise pounded against my eardrum. I felt my world go from black to gray to yellow. The face of the older woman appeared in my line of vision. She spoke to me in harsh, clipped words that I didn’t understand.

  I remembered the Nazis taking Caiyan. I needed to get out of here. Not an easy feat when I couldn’t get vertical. I struggled to sit up, slapping away the old woman’s hand. Caiyan was nowhere. I felt light-headed, but as my vision began to clear, so did my head.

  “Bloody hell,” I said, and the woman gasped.

  “Shh,” the old woman said. “You don’t want Luftwaffe to know you are English.”

  “I’m not English; I’m American.”

  Another gasp from the woman. “An American, even worse. Now your president has died, I am sure the führer will win war.” She spoke in broken English, and her eyes cut to the other inhabitants in the tunnel.

  I brought my hand to my head to try and calm the pounding.

  “You hit head during the bombings. You have quite ze goose egg.” She pointed toward the back of my head. Her accent was thick and rich, not German, maybe Slovakian. I couldn’t really tell. My head ached, and I felt like I was hearing her words underwater.

  “Do you know what happened to the man that was with me?”

  She shrugged. “He was taken to commander in charge. If he was American, he is probably already dead.”

  My heart beat faster, and my inner voice started to cry. There was no telling what nationality Caiyan was claiming to be. He was fluent in several languages, German among them. He wasn’t Hitler’s blond, blue-eyed poster boy, but his dark hair and strong jawline might pass as Italian. I needed answers.

  “Where am I?”

  “We are in Flaktürme.” I cocked my head in question at the name, and she explained. “They are towers Luftwaffe occupies to shoot planes from sky before they drop bombs. It is safest place in city.”

  “Can we leave?”

  “The Luftwaffe will open door when it is safe.”

  A young girl with bright-blue eyes brought the old woman a cup of water, and she helped me drink it. There was something familiar about the girl; her eyes reminded me of someone. The water tasted like rust, and I choked trying to swallow. The girl took the cup from me and smiled and then said something to the woman. The woman translated. “She likes your hair. She thinks it’s a pretty color.”

  My hair—I ran a finger through it and felt the matted wet of sticky blood. Caiyan better be alive, so I can kill him. Who in their right mind travels into the onslaught of a world war? For a piece of art? I hated the fact that a priceless piece of art might be lost in a bombing or a fire, but I wasn’t willing to risk my life for it.

  Damn Caiyan. I’d thought we were moving forward in our relationship, but once again his priorities were cloudy.

  “How long was I unconscious?”

  The woman conferred with the girl again and said, “A few hours.”

  “Hours—oh, my god!” I was going to miss my travel time at Gitmo. Shit! No, wait; when I return, I will have been gone for only a few hours. My inner voice sighed with relief. If I could find Caiyan and get the hell out of here, no one would be the wiser. Jake and General Potts wouldn’t have to know a thing. My inner voice reminded me I had to complete my travel cycle. Time continues until the moon begins to wane. Double shit. A small tear leaked out of my left eye, and my inner voice kissed my key good-bye. I wasn’t going to give up that easily. I still had time.

  “Thank you,” I said to the woman. “Are you a doctor?”

  “No, I’m Anna. I run a Konditorei.” I raised a questioning eyebrow at the foreign word. She stumbled through her words as she searched for the right one. “A Bäckerei von Süßigkeiten.”

  “A bakery?” I asked. “The place you make cakes?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, waving her hands with the excitement that we had found the correct translation. “Before war, it was best bakery in Berlin.” Her eyes lit up as she spoke of her bakery. “But now, well…” Her sentence faltered, and the light in her eyes faded.

  “Jennifer Cloud.” I offered my hand to her, and she reached out and grasped it. “I’m traveling through Berlin with my cousin.”

  “Not a good time to be traveling,” Anna said, and we both let out a strained giggle at the absurdity of my statement.

  A large bang sent a sharp pain shooting behind my right eye as if it had been speared and plucked from the socket. The noise was from the returning three soldiers opening the door to the tunnel. They gave an order in German, and we filed out. The strap on my shoe was broken, and it made a slapping noise as it hit the side of my leg. I kept my head down and followed the people out of the tunnel and into the hallway. Snap, slap, snap, slap. I bent over to try and fix the strap, and a guard bumped his gun into my butt.

  “Gehen,” he ordered, which I assumed meant to move it.

  Another soldier was waiting in the hall and spoke to the beefy guard who was poking me in the ass with the barrel of his rifle. The accent was not the strong, complicated sound of German but the fluid tongue rolling of Italian. I kept my head down to avoid eye contact with the soldiers and to keep the ringing in my ears to a minimum. The two soldiers said a few strong words to each other, and then the soldier in the hall grabbed my arm and shoved me down another hallway.

  Now I was separa
ted from the only woman who could speak English and being manhandled by the Luftwaffe. I was taken to another tunnel and pushed inside by the man. He closed the door. Was he going to rape me? Gertie had a book on anti-Semitism, and it described the women who were raped and tortured by the Nazis. The soldier had his back to me and was peering out the door before he shut it, obviously checking to make sure his comrades wouldn’t interrupt. I jumped on his back and started pounding him with my fists.

  “Jesus, Jen. Are you nuts?” He pulled me off in a swoop of his strong arm. I felt the heat and saw his face in the same instant. Marco.

  I stopped fussing and wrapped him in an embrace.

  “If I were a Nazi, he would have had you executed for assaulting an officer.”

  “I thought you were going to torture me.”

  He bit his bottom lip, and I felt as if that might not be out of the question.

  I was so happy to see him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I should ask you the same question.” He stood back and folded his arms across his chest.

  “I brought Caiyan here to save some art that will be destroyed by a fire.”

  “You’re nuts. This is World War II.”

  “I was a little fuzzy on the details of the landing location.” I changed the subject before he could start in on a lecture. “How did you find me?”

  “Pickles caught your unplanned trip on the travel screen. Luckily, he was paying attention and came to me before he told Agent McCoy.”

  “So Jake doesn’t know I’m here?” I grinned in anticipation of getting back before I was outed and mentally thanked Pickles, the navigator in the travel lab, for watching my back.

  “Not yet,” Marco said.

  “When did you get here?”

  “I landed just as the action began.” His voice became more animated as he described the scenario. “Scared me to death. Bombs fucking dropping everywhere, and Caiyan was carrying you like a corpse.”

  “I fell, and I don’t remember anything until I woke up here.”

  “He disappeared inside the Flaktürme, and I snatched a uniform off an Italian soldier who had fallen victim to a very large brick wall demolished in the raid.”

  “You took the clothes off a dead guy?” I made a face.

  “You’re complaining about my attire?”

  We heard voices in the hallway, and the door opened. Marco turned and ripped my top, pinned me against the wall, and kissed me hard on the mouth. I pushed at him, and the soldiers laughed. Marco said something in German, and they left. The heat between us soared, and he stared hard at me.

  “We’re lucky they didn’t want to join in the fun. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  He grabbed my hand, but I hesitated. He paused and turned, giving me a questioning expression.

  “I can’t leave him here,” I said.

  He sighed. “That asshole is going to get us both killed.”

  “Please, Marco.”

  “Jen, we are at the epicenter of World War II. Do you know anything about this war?”

  I shook my head. My knowledge of the details of World War II was limited. I knew Hitler was the main bad guy. I thought the Italians and the Germans were on the same side. England, Russia—no, make that the Soviet Union, China, and the United States were allies. “We won,” I finally answered.

  Marco frowned. “You should have paid attention in school.” He looked up at the ceiling as if it could cave in any second. “We’re in the middle of the worst bombings in Berlin’s history. This city was bombed for thirty-six straight days. There are only eight days left, and this city will be nothing but ruins.”

  That explained the headless statues in the park. I couldn’t leave Caiyan here without a way to get home. We were going to have to find him and force him to return with us.

  “Let’s go find Caiyan and go home.”

  Marco scowled but cracked the door and signaled that the coast was clear. We were at the bottom of a staircase. We climbed up a floor and tiptoed down a long hallway. At least, I was tiptoeing. Marco was just walking. Snap, slap, snap, slap. Marco stopped.

  “What’s that noise?”

  “My shoe is broken.” The floors were covered with grime, and I wasn’t about to take them off.

  He read my mind, and leaning down, he tucked the strap into the back of the shoe. Satisfied with his cobblering, we went left down an adjacent hallway and halted. Six men sat on the floor, gagged and with their hands tied behind their backs. None of them were Caiyan. Their uniforms were embroidered with RAF badges—British air force.

  “We should release them,” I said.

  “No. We’re not changing the past. Or did you forget the long grounding you had from our last travel?”

  I didn’t look the men in the eyes. Maybe they would make it out on their own. We went up another flight of stairs and passed a small window. The tunnels were underground. The window was filthy, but I could see this was the first floor of the Flak tower. The commanding rooms of the Luftwaffe. As we drew near a room at the end of the hall, I could hear a static-filled rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony being played from a radio. Who was listening to the radio during an air raid?

  We heard voices, and I recognized one as Caiyan’s. He was speaking German. Marco put a finger to his lips, and we pressed against the wall, listening to the men speak. If someone came down the hall, we were done for.

  “He is telling the commanding officer he’s here to move the art,” Marco relayed.

  “I didn’t know you spoke German.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. What do you want to do?”

  “He can’t travel; he doesn’t have a key.”

  Marco looked as if leaving Caiyan in 1945, in the hands of the Nazis, was the perfect place for him.

  “Has he been here before?” Marco asked.

  “Why?”

  “It seems as if they are talking like they know each other. My German may be rusty, but I think Caiyan just called him old friend.”

  My inner voice began to inquire how Caiyan might have traveled without his key. One bitchy, brother-snatching transporter came to mind. I’d thought Mahlia and Caiyan were on opposing sides after we’d taken her brother hostage during my second unofficial travel. If Caiyan needed to travel, he could have used any number of other transporters. I didn’t know why he would have contacted Mahlia. It was probably Ace, but surely Ace would have told me.

  “Earth to Jen,” Marco said, waving his hand in front of my face while the other held firmly on to his weapon. I shook my head, blaming my head injury for the lack of concentration. “We know what he’s after. Let’s see if we can find the hidey-hole and keep it company.”

  Caiyan sounded like he had the Nazi convinced he was legit, so I agreed with Marco. Caiyan would eventually end up in the room with the painting. We made our way back down the stairs and to the other side of the bunker. As we turned the corner, we spotted a guard standing outside a heavy metal door. We ducked back into the adjoining hallway before he saw us.

  “Do you think that’s the hidey-hole?” I asked in a whisper.

  “I’m pretty sure that door is not hiding the mess hall.”

  “We can’t wait here—we’ll be seen.” I looked over my shoulder at the long hall behind us. If someone came down the stairs, we were in plain sight.

  He looked me up and down as if sizing me up for wingman duty and then assessed the guard again. “It’s only one guy. I’m going to take him out. When I do, you grab his feet, and we will move him into the room.”

  “OK, do you want me to hold the gun on him?” I asked, reaching for Marco’s gun.

  “Definitely not,” he said, shaking his head and slinging his gun to his back. “I’ve already been shot once in my lifetime. That’s plenty, thank you very much.”

  I rolled my eyes at him, and he said, “Wait here.”

  He made his way down the long hall and to the guard. Marco approached, and the guard did the whole Nazi s
alute thing. Instead of returning the gesture, Marco waved his hand as if he were doing a Jedi mind trick, and time slowed, except for Marco. In a millisecond, he had removed the guard’s gun and knocked him unconscious.

  I ran down the hall. “That was amazing.”

  “I have other talents that are equally as amazing,” he said, picking up the comrade under the arms and jerking his head toward the man’s feet. “You grab his legs and help me get him in the room.”

  I unlatched the heavy door and held it open with my backside as we carried him inside and shut the door.

  “Holy Treasure Island,” Marco said as he dropped the man on the floor. I turned to see a room filled with enough stolen booty to make even Long John Silver jealous.

  Chapter 7

  The tunnel was longer than the one Caiyan and I had fled to for safety, but it had the same dingy yellow walls and the stench of war. The hammocks were missing, but the tunnel was filled top to bottom with artifacts. Paintings still in their gilded frames were stacked on tables and leaning against walls. Bronze and marble statues were crammed in the back of the room. Tapestries were rolled up and piled pyramid-style on top of one another. Tables, chairs, dishes, and the remnants of people’s lives torn apart by war were stashed in the bottom of the Flak Tower like discarded newspaper.

  We walked through the room in awe at the splendor that crowded the room. Delicate bone china was stacked on tables, and I was surprised it had survived the invasion without a crack. I picked up a pretty cream-colored plate with tiny roses sketched around the edge. These were special, like the dishes Mamma Bea used at Thanksgiving. Marco was admiring the statues that lined the wall.

  “Jen, these statues. Well, their dudes are…small.”

  I carefully returned the plate and walked over to him. He was staring at the pubic area of a statue of a naked man.

  “I think I read somewhere that small genitals were considered majestic.”

  Marco snorted. “Would you like to find out how majestic I am?”